Saturday, January 31, 2009

I like bacon as much as the next guy. I get it: it's a bit ironic, it's fatty, it's comforting, it's delicious. But for the love of God, people, enough is [bad word] enough!

If I never see another bacon-laden appetizer, I wont be sad. If I never hear the word bacon in conjunction with dessert, I wont weep. I mean, c'mon, bacon jumped the shark when it was infused in bourbon. And I LIKE bourbon AND bacon... But can we please just stop now?

Time out Nancy, Harry, and Barack. Go to your rooms. Now think hard about paying for your past excesses. Don't come back out until you've come up with a plan for a solution. And don't even think about buying more goodies for your friends.

It is not just Prime Minister Limbaugh and other conservative commentators who are critical of the Democrats' pork filled "stimulus" bill. The Chinese are starting to balk at buying our debt, and now the international community has checked in from Davos (this from Charlie Sykes).

DAVOS, Switzerland — Even as Congress looks for ways to expand President Obama’s $819 billion stimulus package, the rest of the world is wondering how Washington will pay for it all.

Few people attending the World Economic Forum question the need to kick-start America’s economy, the world’s largest, with a package that could reach $1 trillion over two years. But the long-term fallout from increased borrowing by the federal government, and its potential to drive up inflation and interest rates around the world, seems to getting more attention here than in Washington.

As someone who is more conservative with my finances that I am politically (yes, really), this troubles me. I intend to leave my children and grandchildren with some sort of nest egg, even if this means working until I die.

But our national leaders have no sense of fiscal discipline. Here we are in a time when federal and state budgets are grossly out of balance and we also owe massive debt. Yet, instead of reducing expenditures and raising revenues to pay off old bills, they have gone on a wild new spending spree.

The Republicans are not much better. Although past experience has shown that lower tax rates will increase taxes collected, I think everyone in government needs to step back, get it's own house in order and let the rest of the nation sort itself out.

My real issue with the current U.S. economy is that a nation cannot pay its way out of debt by creating valueless goods and services. Entrepreneurs should not be rewarded for creating useless stuff like Starbucks, subprime mortgages, web ads and "alternative" energy. Likewise, government should not be throwing money to promote these products; or at arts giveaways, condoms, and other unneeded pork.

We need to get back to producing good and services that are of value and that are in demand by other nations. To achieve this, the following will help.

Develop, utilize and export the vast natural resources of the United States.

Take the onerous restrictions off of U.S. manufacturing. Tightening environmental restrictions on U.S. industry results in an overall dirtier planet. The Obama administration's Out of sight, out of mind environmental policies are a planetary disaster.

Stop wasting grain to make inferior biofuels for U.S. consumption and export this grain as food instead. Food is more valuable than fuel.

Greenhouse gases - don't make me laugh.

We can't spend, tax or regulate our way out of this financial mess. We need to innovate and produce more to become more prosperous. Only this will solve our underlying fiscal problems.

A note to Mr. Darlin of the Times. I don't claim to be the inventor of the bacon wrapped fattie, I was just talking smack to Aaron and Jason. However, I did post my much superior creation prior to the Bacon Explosion post. I credited my inspiration to Dan's Bacon & Cheese Roll and provided a link.

It seemed more than coincidental that Jason, Moe & Aaron independently came up with their weaved bacon wrapped around a fattie substance idea within a month of Dan's widely circulated post. Since they were such swell sports, I've been jerking their chains ever since. Clearly they didn't copy me or the would have created a far better product.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

President Obama listened to Republican gripes about his stimulus package during a meeting with congressional leaders Friday morning - but he also left no doubt about who's in charge of these negotiations. "I won," Obama noted matter-of-factly, according to sources familiar with the conversation.

The exchange arose as top House and Senate Republicans expressed concern to the president about the amount of spending in the package. They also raised red flags about a refundable tax credit that returns money to those who don’t pay income taxes, the sources said.

The Republicans stressed that they want to include more middle class tax cuts in the package, citing their proposal to cut the two lowest tax rates — 15 percent and 10 percent — to ten percent and five percent, rather than issue the refundable credit Obama wants.

President Obama has already forgotten that he won the election by convincing undecided voters that he would implement a moderate Republican tax policy that included tax cuts for the middle class. Too bad for Obama that he will have a record to run on by the '12 election. He has already created fodder for 2012 and will be exposed as the socialist that he is.

Key components of the secret structure developed under Bush are being swept away: The military’s Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facility, where the rights of habeas corpus and due process had been denied detainees, will close, and the CIA is now prohibited from maintaining its own overseas prisons. And in a broad swipe at the Bush administration’s lawyers, Obama nullified every legal order and opinion on interrogations issued by any lawyer in the executive branch after Sept. 11, 2001.

Great news for you folks in New York City, L.A., Miami, Vegas, or where ever else that is targeted for extinction. There will be no schadenfreude here after you are wiped out.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

I was there from the very beginning in the middle of the National Mall, on the day before as well as the whole inauguration.

The crowd was overwhelmingly african american. That is a simple fact that anyone there knows and should be honest enough to say.

It was a mess. Extremely poorly organized crowds moved in different directions with no idea where they were going .

There was no ‘coming together.’ The atmosphere was extremely racist and if you didn’t look right, they let you know.

(...)

The event itself though was far from what it was described.

I felt very, very uncomfortable. Regular glances and snide remarks sent the message very clearly ‘what are you doing here - this is our event’!

I expect that within four years there will be a backlash to the Obama Administration's racist policies and attitudes. Race relations will be set back by decades. This will be the undoing of the Democrats recent election gains.

Global grain markets are facing breaking point according to new research by the University of Leeds into the agricultural stability of China.

Experts predict that if China's recent urbanisation trends continue, and the country imports just 5% more of its grain, the entire world's grain export would be swallowed whole.

The knock-on effect on the food supply - and on prices - to developing nations could be huge.

Sustainability researchers have conducted a major study into the vulnerability of Chinese cropland to drought over the past 40 years, which has highlighted the growing fragility of global grain supply. Increased urban development in previously rich farming areas is a likely cause.

(...)

At the moment the Chinese government claims that China is 95% self sufficient in terms of grain supply. If China were to start importing just 5% of its grain (to make up a shortfall produced by low yields or change of land use to more profitable crops) the demand would hoover up the entire world's grain export.

The pressure on grain availability for international grain markets could, in turn, have a huge knock-on effect. Poorer countries are particularly vulnerable, as demonstrated by the 2007-2008 food crisis.

They left out the part about why using corn to power our cars is a good idea.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

"If I'm doing something stupid, somebody in Chicago can send me an email and say, 'What are you doing?'

"I want to be able to have voices, other than the people who are immediately working for me, be able to reach out and send me a message about what's happening in America."

So having 300 foreign policy advisers is not enough for the new President, he wants to take advise from 300,000,000 Americans. Wow! If he has time for that, maybe he should be looking for a more challenging job.

The reality of Blackberry users/text messagers (OMG - same people, different devices), is that when they are using their devices, they are not giving any attention to those that they are with. I did not say or mean "full attention" in that last sentence. They are not giving those that they are with any attention in the moment that they are reading or sending messages. "Be here now" cannot happen when you are twiddling your thumbs on a Blackberry.

Why did Obama raise and spend $1 billion to get elected if he is not interested in performing the job of the Presidency? If any job in the world is 24/7, it is this one. He can no longer spend 191 minutes a day shooting hoops or even one second reading 'texts' from his BFF on the Southside. He has not changed his behvior at all as an adult, don't expect him to take this new job seriously and to give it the attention that it demands.

If Obama refuses to put away his childish toys, these word that he will speak on Tuesday will not be uttered seriously.

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

If President Obama was to demand the funding for and enabling legislation to kick start the construction of the dozens of new nuclear power plants this country needs, as well as the wind turbines envisioned by T. Boone Pickens and the grid expansion everyone knows is necessary, not only would he be creating thousands and thousands of great jobs, he'd be powering the U.S. up for a second American century. The appropriation is only the first step. He'd need not a car czar, but a power czar, tasked with delivering the plants on a schedule and authorized to blow through logjams. To get such a massive and necessary expansion of our power supply underway, he'd also have to have "notwithstanding any other law" language in the appropriations bill, or every one of the new plants would be quickly swamped in the sorts of environmental challenges that bedevil every major infrastructure project in the county.

The good news is that the spending bill that looms is so huge that all but the most ardent environmentalist can be bought off with a set aside of billions for habitat acquisition for any threatened or endangered species impacted by the power project. The unions would cheer; environmentalists would cheer, conservatives who know that energy equals freedom would cheer. Well before he faced re-election, President Obama could point to the massive outline of the next generation's power supply, a signal achievement with extraordinary multiplier benefits to the economy and national security.

“Isn’t it important we accelerate this proven source of clean energy?” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Al.) asked with respect to nuclear power.

“I’m supportive of the fact that the nuclear industry should be part of the mix,” Chu said.

He said federal loan guarantee programs should be used to jump-start the nuclear industry while the nation develops a long-term plan for safe disposal of waste and researches ways to recycle waste in an economically viable and safe manner.

Ca-ching! More record profits in the nuclear consulting business are on the horizon.

Last month I made this post that declared that the cause of Global Warming was the manipulation of data by James Hansen and his colleagues. I really assumed that their mathematical "corrections" systematically revised the temperature data based on some logical assumptions.

Instead, we learn from Anthony Watts that statistical analysis provides evidence that Hansen and his crew are hand editing the data. You really can't make this stuff up.

David Stockwell has analyzed the frequency of the final digits in the temperature data by NASA’s GISS led by James Hansen, and he claims that the unequal distribution of the individual digits strongly suggests that the data have been modified by a human hand.

With Mathematica 7, such hypotheses take a few minutes to be tested. And remarkably enough, I must confirm Stockwell’s bold assertion.

But that’s not all, Lubos goes on to say:

Using the IPCC terminology for probabilities, it is virtually certain (more than 99.5%) that Hansen’s data have been tempered with.

I am personally aware from some work I've done in another scientific area that no matter how smart the scientists and engineers are, they are almost always lousy statisticians. When those pros get involved, they can cut through the crap and bullshit right away.

Last week I reviewed my homeowner's insurance policy limits with my agent. When I got home I told Mrs. Headless that if the house burned down we would have $xxx,xxx to rebuild. I also mentioned that we wouldn't necessarily have to rebuild the same house on our property. In particular, we could get away from the formal dining room and build a large eat-in kitchen.

Our home currently has a traditional dining room that is rarely used for dining, only three days each year. Make that only two times, since we will usually dine out on Easter. Lifestyles have changed, and this room no longer suits the way we live. It is now a place for storage and for cats to sleep.

A little later a lightbulb went on for me. Why burn down the house when we can make the changes to the existing structure?

I've been planning the design change ever since. It is not your usual eat-in kitchen, but I think it will look great and be the new place to be in our house. It will be the spot that people stop upon entering the house and will be an excellent configuration for entertaining.

The Project: Knock out a portion of the load bearing wall between our kitchen and dining room and install an island through the opening along with 30" space for traffic. The island will include a second oven and a barsink, er, make that "prep sink", and be topped with the same type of granite we have in the existing kitchen.

On the back half of the island build a 42" high eating bar. Install new cabinets in the current dining room, including a 72" built-in china hutch and also include a 42" opening for a counter depth built-in refrigerator.

We will also leave space for a pair of small chairs and a coffee table. "The Starbucks Area" is what I have designated this spot.

I will install an LCD TV on one wall to improve the livability of the room further. This will be "The Sports Bar" when Mrs. Headless is not around.

I created The Expanding Kitchen Blog as my online diary for this kitchen expansion project. I intend to complete the work in time for our Smoke Day Party on Memorial Day weekend.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

All I get on my TV for the BCS Championship Game is a pregame freeze frame of Tim Tebow. All my other channels work, just not FOX. This is the same on two separate television sets.

A call to Charter (1-888-GET-CHARTER) resulted in me being told that it was a problem with my cable box. The problem with that theory is that I unplugged the blasted box several weeks ago after my picture kept freezing and skipping.

Then they tell me that it must be FOX's problem. Nope, I already checked with my son and the game is showing just fine on Time-Warner Cable at home.

It is still not Charter's problem. They have no other reports, so it must be me. Do I want to schedule an appointment? Click.

Just a taste of things to come with Digital Transition.

UPDATE: The picture was restored at 11:49 of the 2nd Quarter. Just after the Sooners scored. Someone else must have call to complain. I think I must have been the first to navigate through the automated help line and get to a human CSR.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

It is time to admit that the Big 10 is no longer a college football Major Conference. 1 and 6 in bowl games is more than enough proof. Demographics and population drain to the South and West have caught up with these teams and the result is ugly.

The Big Ten is now nothing but a very good mid-major football conference.

Friday, January 02, 2009

"Dreams" may prove to be the most consequential literary hoax of our time, but unlike Roseblat's or Frey's, Obama's memoir has enormous political value.

No, not that fake concentration camp story. Oprah previously pushed a book detailing the fake "Odyssey" of a young man searching for his father's dreams.

The thesis is simple enough: Bill Ayers served as Barack Obama's muse in the creation of Obama's 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father. Ayers breathed creative life into this ungifted amateur, who had written nothing of note before, and reconceived him as a literary prodigy.

"I was astonished by his ability to write, to think, to reflect, to learn and turn a good phrase," said Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison of the Dreams' author. "I was very impressed. This was not a normal political biography." Agreed, it was not normal at all.

For simplicity's sake, I refer to the author of Dreams as "Obama." He provided the basic narrative and surely had the final say. Not content to merely edit, however, the highly skilled Ayers appears to have woven the rough strands of Obama's life with tales from Homer's Odyssey and spun a work of literature in the process.

Ayers leaves scarcely an Homeric trope unturned in his mining of the Odyssey to describe Obama's "personal interior journey." Before he completes his heroic cycle, Obama will confront green-eyed seductresses, blind seers, lotus-eaters, the "ghosts" of the underworld, whirlpools, and about a half dozen sundry "demons." It was not, however, until I identified a menacing one-eyed bald man in Dreams that I became convinced that the parallelism was conscious.